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if the forum is supposed to be "newbie friendly" leaving a bunch of argumentative responses that have nothing to do with the question behind for all to see doesn't do much for advancing that.

I think the unedited thread is more educational to
a newbie than the edited thread. Someone now reading
that thread will see an example of transgressive
behavior by a newbie, and know to avoid it.

She will also see the community actually caring
about the way it responds to newbies and attempting
to establish norms.

And she will also see that strong disagreement
can be registered and competing opinions debated
about interesting topics, even in the newbie area.

Also she'll learn a bit about what's expected of
her before she asks a question, and how she should
ask it, and also some information about a
particular mud.

All in all, I think that restoring the posts leads
to a thread that is of good value to a newbie. The
thread may contain material that some folks consider
irrelevant, but such people can start developing
the filters they will need to navigate elsewhere
here and on other forums and on the internet, where
meta-discussion and digression is as normal in
text communication as in spoken conversation.

To believe that newcomers need meta material removed
infantilizes them, and I don't think there's a
lot of point to it. If they really really can't
handle scanning past tangents (and really, if
they asked a question, they should be expected to
put in a little bit of effort in reading the
result) then perhaps they're just not ready to
handle the internet at all, and I don't see this
forum's mission involving such fundamental education.

I think I resent being lumped in as a "usual suspect"
complaining about censorship because I don't
believe that is a fair characterization of me
or what I was doing. I believe I was defending
the value of the thread which *benefited*
from the digressions. Making me sound like a member
of a group of anarchists agitating against
oppression has the insidious implication that my
argument is invalid because my position is fundamentally
political. I reject this implication and point
to the facts of my arguments, which have been
reasonable and made in good faith.

Quote:

This is especially evidenced by how Cratylus challenged Matt to take the argument to TMC, where he knows "the law" doesn't exist.

I'd got the feeling people wanted to avoid the
sort of bitchslapping that matt/sarapis/thelogos/whatever
seemed intent on engaging in. Taking it elsewhere
seemed the polite thing to do.

I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with that
sentence other than explicitly paint me as someone
interested in anarchy. If that is what you were
up to, I have to say I'm a little disappointed in the
disregard you apparently have for the validity of
my specific arguments, washing them away with the
sort of "YOU want ANARCHY" dismissal of a Fox News
commentator.

"That said, I agree Steve was rude and deserved what he got "

I think he got much better than he deserved, and I
think Brody deserves kudos for that, not deletion
of his posts.

I think the unedited thread is more educational to
a newbie than the edited thread. Someone now reading
that thread will see an example of transgressive
behavior by a newbie, and know to avoid it.

I disagree. Someone who is truly a newbie will more likely see the unedited thread as an example of hostility toward newcomers to mudding. First impressions are everything and if that thread had been mine, despite Steve being a jerk first, the massive off-topic bickering about it that came afterward would cause me to go elsewhere. That's where good moderators come in handy and should be allowed to step in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cratylus

To believe that newcomers need meta material removed
infantilizes them, and I don't think there's a
lot of point to it.

I don't agree with this opinion of moderation. It implies that doing so is a negative activity with no value. I think it's more of a disservice to have a question asked, rudely bumped, and then have 5 million chattering posters debating why the newbie was a jerk, and why telling him so was mean spirited and wrong. It serves no purpose other than to inflate post counts and bloat up the database with useless crap.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cratylus

If they really really can't
handle scanning past tangents (and really, if
they asked a question, they should be expected to
put in a little bit of effort in reading the
result) then perhaps they're just not ready to
handle the internet at all, and I don't see this
forum's mission involving such fundamental education.

This kind of elitism and condecsention is exactly what drives people away and ends up breeding more and more of the same pile of troll postings and bitter flamewars to begin with. The kind of person it takes to overcome that type of treatment is often not going to then make a very good source of help for a newbie. If the goal of this site is to be informative, then one of two things needs to happen:

1. People need to shape up and behave themselves and stop bickering with each other at the drop of a hat. So far I don't see this happening on its own.

or,

2. Moderators need to step in and enforce whatever policies they deem appropriate for their sections. All I see when this comes up is resistance and talk of censorship and oppression. Which is just plain silly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cratylus

Quote:

Originally Posted by samson

This is especially evidenced by how Cratylus challenged Matt to take the argument to TMC, where he knows "the law" doesn't exist.

I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with that
sentence other than explicitly paint me as someone
interested in anarchy. If that is what you were
up to, I have to say I'm a little disappointed in the
disregard you apparently have for the validity of
my specific arguments, washing them away with the
sort of "YOU want ANARCHY" dismissal of a Fox News
commentator.

It wasn't terribly hard to understand. The tone of your challenge to Matt to take it to TMC came off like the "lets go where the evil liberal censor freaks won't be able to stop me" tone of a CNN commentator.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Threshold

Enforcing community standards and applying positive peer pressure is not being a vigilante.

It is when you appoint yourself as the enforcer of those standards and you aren't a staff member for the site.

Granted, moderation policy here is inconsistent at best. But the solution is not to turn the masses loose for mob justice. The solution is to reign things in to where they should have been had the rules been enforced consistently from the start.

First impressions are everything and if that thread had been mine, despite Steve being a jerk first, the massive off-topic bickering about it that came afterward would cause me to go elsewhere.

Was there a golden age when no discord occurred
in mudland? There must have been, because if
discord had been around when we were noobs,
surely we all would have fled mudding.

Newcomers are not infants. They can be expected
to handle pointful topic drift just as well
as anyone else. And if they can't, deleting
posts by experienced folk who mean well isn't
going to cure them of their feebleness.

Quote:

I don't agree with this opinion of moderation. It implies that doing so is a negative activity with no value.

I'm sorry if it implied that. This was not my intention.
I think it is patently obvious that there are
cases of good moderation. This is so obvious I did
not think it was necessary for me to state it.
However, apparently that need exists, and I so do state.

Quote:

This kind of elitism and condecsention is exactly what drives people away and ends up breeding more and more of the same pile of troll postings and bitter flamewars to begin with.

I do not believe that expecting newcomers to
take some responsibility for their integration
is elite or condescending. I think it is
common sense. My experience when joining a
community is that it is my job to make an effort
to conform to their standards, and in return they
can be expected to try making it easy. But it's
a two way street.

Quote:

It wasn't terribly hard to understand.

So then you *are* resorting to that dishonest rhetoric.
I'm very surprised because you'd seemed like a good sport.
This swift reach for the ad hominem bat, I'd hoped, was
just a misunderstanding. Instead, to you I actually am one
of these "usual suspects" you can just dismiss with
a conflation of authority and justification. In all candor,
rhetorical jousting aside, I'm genuinely disappointed in you
for it. While siding with authority does seem in character
for you, doing so reflexively and with me as your target
makes me question the care with which you've considered
this thread and the judgment you've used in the manner
you joined it. Forgive me for holding out hope I've
simply misunderstood your intent in some way.

The problem I had with it (and perhaps others had the same problem) is that there is a severe lack of consistency in the moderation on TMS. If the real goal is to maintain a sense of civility on these forums (a laudable goal), then a lot more personal attacks need to get moderated throughout the forums.

In other forums, you have outright, off topic personal attacks being left alone with the explanation "we want to let things play out and resolve themselves." Then you have this forum, where some random twit acts up and posts get moderated for simply telling the guy he needs to tone it down and stop being a nuisance.

I'd just like to address this point.

Firstly, I have no idea what sort of moderation goes on in other parts of the forum. I rarely visit them these days because I got sick of the bickering, although I have been told once or twice that very little goes on. I think part of this might be down to the fact that moderators on here are drawn from the community, are often well known, and they don't want to have people accusing them of taking sides (even if they weren't). I, however, don't care what people accuse me of. None of you really know me, I don't really know more than one or two of you except by reputation, and I just come here to do my job if and when it's required because I offered to help Adam out if it was needed and he knew I've had a lot of experience moderating forums. I'd agree that if we're going to maintain civility on TMS then a more consistent moderation approach could be needed, but that's something down to Lasher to sort out I guess.

My last real point in this thread is mainly directed at Brody and everyone who seems to think I was victimising him because I "think he's a jerkoff". Brody's initial post WAS NOT the reason the thread got moderated. If all posts after his first had stayed on topic, avoided insults, and just been information, then I'd have happily left it alone even if I personally think his first point could be misunderstood. The argument as a whole caused the moderation, and I felt it best to remove the whole thing. The information given out in the posts that were deleted was covered in other posts left behind, and if you ignored previous knowledge of what was there and those ugly stubs then it scanned perfectly fine.

Random twit or long-standing community member, I don't care. If the thread goes off-topic and descends into a flamefest it's going to get moderated if it's in Newbie Help or Mud Humour. Some people will agree with my style of moderation, some won't. You can't please 100% of people 100% of the time, and I gave up trying long ago.

I do not believe that expecting newcomers to
take some responsibility for their integration
is elite or condescending. I think it is
common sense. My experience when joining a
community is that it is my job to make an effort
to conform to their standards, and in return they
can be expected to try making it easy. But it's
a two way street.

This comes down to how badly you're interested in bringing new people into the MUD community. Given how difficult it is, I'm all for making it flat-out as easy as possible for newbies to come in and feel welcome. If that means we grin and smile even when someone has not immediately adjusted to the community standards, so be it. Text MUDs need them while they do not need text MUDs, which are just one entertainment option out of many for them. It behooves us to make this option the most attractive possible.

The last thing someone wants is to be treated with a condescending attitude "for their own good," as you put it. Telling someone this is "for your own good" is inherently patronizing, after all, as it assumes that you somehow know more about what is good for them than they do. That might be the case for your 3 year old child but that is not the case for newbies to MUDs.

Newcomers are not infants. They can be expected
to handle pointful topic drift just as well
as anyone else. And if they can't, deleting
posts by experienced folk who mean well isn't
going to cure them of their feebleness.

You are exactly correct in this. Newcomers are not infants and we can expect that they make a certain amount of effort. I never said they were or that they shouldn't. I am objecting soley to the subsequent derailment of the post that drew the moderator action ( appropriately so ). Once Steve had asked his question, bumped his post, got some help, then rudely replied and got more help that should have ended it. There was no need for the mob style session that followed. It's not about newbies being infants. It's about us being adult enough to know when to let it go and stop responding, or ignore it entirely. Had that happened, the thread would have died. Xerihae would not have needed to delete posts. Everyone would have walked away happy. If Steve was a troll, he woudln't have gotten the rise out of everyone he was looking for. And other newcomers wouldn't have seen Flamewar #14,736 erupt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cratylus

Seriously dude, that's the best you can do? Let's
take it to The IRE Connector and really duke it out.

You said that in response to something Matt said in response to you. How else was I supposed to interpret the meaning when it sounds pretty much like you wanted to goad Matt into heading over to TMC ( despite the veiled insult even there ). "and really duke it out" is a pretty clear attempt to say "where nobody will moderate me for being an ass to you".

Quote:

Originally Posted by cratylus

So then you *are* resorting to that dishonest rhetoric....Instead, to you I actually am one
of these "usual suspects" you can just dismiss with
a conflation of authority and justification.

Given the previous statements, I'm not sure where you think I'm being dishonest. It seemed perfectly clear to me what you were after. In this particular case, yes. I lumped you in with the "usual suspects". If that makes me dishonest, so be it. I spoke my mind and I gave up caring what people think of me when I do a long time ago.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cratylus

While siding with authority does seem in character
for you, doing so reflexively and with me as your target
makes me question the care with which you've considered
this thread and the judgment you've used in the manner
you joined it. Forgive me for holding out hope I've
simply misunderstood your intent in some way.

I find it ironic that you would note I tend to favor authority over anarchy when you yourself got into quite the mess over on the I3 router because you wanted your channels to have some measure of civility when the refugees from gjs showed up. I seem to recall several people objected, raised a big stink, and ultimately you refused to budge. Frankly, I respected your position greatly for it and for not backing down. Even when it resulted in splitting off another router for the anarchists.

Yet, here you are, agitating for the moderators of this forum who are attemtping to impose civility to back down and let the mob rule. Do you not see some element of hypocricy in that? I'm not trying to be a jackass here but you've got to admit it seems a bit odd.

In this particular case, yes. I lumped you in with the "usual suspects". If that makes me dishonest, so be it.

Then so it is. I know you are not foolish enough to actually confuse
the advocacy of admin restraint with the advocacy of
anarchy, so what can I presume on your part other
than bad faith?

Quote:

I find it ironic that you would note I tend to favor authority over anarchy when you yourself got into quite the mess over on the I3 router because you wanted your channels to have some measure of civility when the refugees from gjs showed up.

I was wondering if you'd bring this up. I think that the episode you refer to
is a perfect example of the community being allowed to discuss and debate
policy to its heart's content, let the chips fall where they may.

Since you bring it up, let me enlighten folks with a url that explains
what you're talking about:

On the old router, newbies were victimized so violently they
were actually talked into deleting their muds. Literally, this
actually happened. I set up a router to avoid violence against
newbies, and to enhance i3 availability. When people used
channels to hassle newbies and spew racist language, I
banned them from the channels they abused *until* they agreed
to follow the rules of the router they connected to. This is a
far, far cry from deleting posts for aesthetic reasons.

You seemed to want to pretend that I was advocating anarchy.
I was not.

Now you want to pretend that my disagreement with the
moderation in a thread means I'm a hypocrite because of
that alleged anarchy.

I can't stop you from using misleading rhetoric, but I
will certainly call you on your dishonesty. For shame, sir.

The reason I think that router incident supports my position
is that it demonstrates my willingness, eagerness, and
enthusiasm for soliciting and engaging the opinions of those
opposed. I did not fear their open defiance, and I did not
seek to suppress their ideas. I asked for input and votes:

I didn't hide from a fight, I didn't try to silence
debate (and in fact actively encouraged it), and I
have stood firm in my belief that getting things in
the open is healthy, and that protecting newbies is
important and worthwhile. You can do both without
resorting to deletion of non-violatory posts.

Thank you for letting me prove my bona-fides as a
champion of newbies. I'm telling you as someone who's
fought tooth and nail to keep them alive and keep
them coming, that their protection does not require the
deletion of posts from veteran contributors you
think are less-than-polite.

I thought that Xerihae's moderation was excessive and
I said so. That you've found the need to stomp
on me and try distort my reputation as a result says a
hell of a lot more about you than it does about me.

You know as well as I do that vigorous debate that's on point is something I'm not opposed to. If I'm supposed to be dishonest for taking issue with your dislike for the moderation here, then I take issue with your attempt to make it out like I'm in favor of stifling debate when the issue gets heated.

You also missed one very critical detail in your attempt to paint me as the bad guy: The router dispute happened on your watch, in your territory. How you chose to handle it is entirely up to you. Allowing people to be rude and abusive while debating the issue is apparently fine to you. That's great and wonderful. Had you decided to permanently ban the offenders, delete their forum accounts on lpmuds.net and refuse to engage them in the matter further, it would have been your site, your rules. Regardless of how you decided it, it would have made you look weak to back away from the decision made and give in to the demands coming from the other side.

My impression is that being rude and abusive wasn't acceptable to Xerihae and he made that clear. He took what action he deemed appropriate. Which I quite frankly think was pretty restrained. He could have simply deleted the entire topic forever. He might even have been able to ban the offenders from that forum, I don't know how much power vbulliten gives moderators. It's not hiding from a fight to choose to remove abusiveness.

When you agitated for the moderation decision to be reversed, it sure looked to me like you were favoring mob anarchy over moderator authority. How else was it supposed to be taken? I think the fact that you ( and others ) successfully got Xerihae to back down makes moderation authority here look weak and ineffective. If all it takes is some loud shouting and a mob mentality to reverse a decision, then what does that truly tell newcomers ( and trolls ) about who is in control?

The fact that Xerihae guided the discussion of this issue here rather than simply cutting it off suggests to me he's not "hiding from a fight" either. It just wasn't appropriate to carry this out in the newbie forum. The debate hasn't been silenced. It's simply been moved to an appropriate place. That's the only real issue here, isn't it? Why are you trying to make this into a lot more than it needs to be? I only raised the router issue as an example of authority in action. Not as a means to pick a fight with you over it.

then I take issue with your attempt to make it out like I'm in favor of stifling debate when the issue gets heated

Ok. I was talking about suppressing adverse opinions
in general by deleting posts. I can see that it seems
like I was accusing you of doing that. I was not
being specific like that, and I agree you seem
pleased enough to scrap on TMC. And here

Quote:

When you agitated for the moderation decision to be reversed, it sure looked to me like you were favoring mob anarchy over moderator authority. How else was it supposed to be taken?

Exactly as I said. That the newcomer was not
hassled, the moderation was excessive, and
the meta-discussion constructive. If your
position is that you misunderstood what I said
as a call for anarchy, fine. We can just roll
with that. But my argument was that
the thread was in compliance with the rules
of the site and intent of "helping newbies",
not that the rules should be tossed.

And questioning the judgment of figures of
authority is not the same as advocating anarchy.

I accept that it looked like the advocacy
of anarchy to you at the time. I hope you
see now that it in fact was not.

Quote:

I only raised the router issue as an example of authority in action. Not as a means to pick a fight with you over it.

We can roll with that, too. As I said before,
I'm much happier interpreting your posts as a
misunderstanding than intentional trolls
with attached vendetta.

For the record, I understand that Xerihae acts
with the confidence of Lasher and as such
represents the authority of this site. As I
stated in my first post I also understand Xerihae's
intent was good.

I did not remove posts for aesthetic reasons (although I did put them back because the stubs made the thread look messy).

I did not remove posts because of Brodys initial response.

I did not remove posts which did not continue the argument. If they contained information, said information was covered in the remaining replies.

I had no interest in stifling debate. When I mentioned keeping the reason for moderation to PMs, I should also have mentioned starting a new topic elsewhere. I forgot. One of the forums I used to help moderate had a rule that moderation discussions were kept to PMs between the affected parties and moderators. Looks like I'm human too! Does not my continued participation here indicate my willingness to debate the issue?

I have no idea if my moderation is to the satisfaction of Lasher. Please remember that he inherited the moderation staff from Synozeer, and the fact that I, and any other moderators, are still here does not necessarily mean it is with his blessing. You should not take my actions as an indicator that Lasher agrees with this sort of moderation unless he comes out and says so himself. If he does agree, fine. If not he can tell me so and I will either follow the guidelines he gives me or accept his decision to remove me as a moderator.

And to cratylus, the newcomer was hassled (perhaps not underservedly). The meta-discussion may or may not have been constructive, but it did not belong in that thread. You may be used to/like forums where every thread ends up going off on a complete tangent, but I prefer threads in that particular forum to stick to the question at hand to make it easier for newcomers to read through and find what they might be after. You're certainly welcome to disagree and question my decision, after all no-one is infallible, but saying that it's "noob admin behaviour" because you happen to disagree with my style is perhaps a bit much.

Was there a golden age when no discord occurred in mudland? There must have been, because if discord had been around when we were noobs, surely we all would have fled mudding.

Correlation doesn't imply causation. Specifically, one could argue that text MUDs became popular despite the oft-crude Internet subculture and how it tends to treat newcomers (*), if large enough numbers of people were checking the games out. It's fairly common to see veteran MUDers trying to 'haze' new ones unless the atmosphere is actively coached to reduce it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cratylus

Newcomers are not infants. They can be expected to handle pointful topic drift just as well as anyone else. And if they can't, deleting posts by experienced folk who mean well isn't going to cure them of their feebleness.

1) The major difference is that a newcomer to the site has a much lower barrier to simply leaving and not returning. They aren't invested (socially, not necessarily financially, though that may also be the case) in the hobby.

2) The low-effort solution is just to ignore posts from newcomers that you don't feel like answering politely. Xerihae (or anyone) isn't advocating that you must do something. People are advocating that you don't actively do something which may be negative.

3) Whether or not you mean well is irrelevant and subjective. How you are perceived matters. What is "feeble" to you may just be someone who doesn't understand the community standards.

4) I agree that Steve was likely trolling, though obviously only he really knows. The goal of the troll is negative attention, and ignoring them is much more effective than engaging them.

(*): As an aside, I'd advocate this as the default term for new visitors to the site, and renaming the appropriate forum. Kudos to Parnassus and Brody for mentioning it. "Newbie" isn't necessarily derogatory, but it can have that connotation, and I can see how it would be alienating. We're guilty of this on CF as well, and upon reflection I'll see what I can do to change this.

To be totally fair: I was being a little sarcastic about the idea of renaming the Newbie Help forum. Although I agree it can have a negative connotation, I think it might be a mistake to politically correctify everything just for the sake of preserving someone's overly thin skin.

If the general consensus on TMS is to rename it, of course, that's fine. But the concern I have is that just about everybody might have some little niggling thing that offends them and we'll end up playing PC ping-pong as we try to avoid anything offensive.

But the concern I have is that just about everybody might have some little niggling thing that offends them and we'll end up playing PC ping-pong as we try to avoid anything offensive.

Well, like I said, you don't have to worry about that from me. Yes I thought your first post in that thread could be taken the wrong way, but as I said it was the argument as a whole that caused the deletion not your first reply. I've also said in this thread that I think it would be useful if people used a bit of common sense and courtesy when replying but as long as replies aren't outright rude or offensive I'm not about to start deleting/editing posts because I don't agree with the way you typed something!

I have no idea if my moderation is to the satisfaction of Lasher. Please remember that he inherited the moderation staff from Synozeer, and the fact that I, and any other moderators, are still here does not necessarily mean it is with his blessing. You should not take my actions as an indicator that Lasher agrees with this sort of moderation unless he comes out and says so himself. If he does agree, fine. If not he can tell me so and I will either follow the guidelines he gives me or accept his decision to remove me as a moderator.

I'd have been much more concerned about it if this thread had not been opened to discuss the issue separately. That was a good move, rather than killing the conversation dead it was just moved to a more appropriate location.

Most people posting here are MUD admins or have been at some point. We are all too familiar with those controversial areas of "policy" where you can pretty much count on half your users being ticked off no matter which way you go, the only question being which half.

In a forum it seems "level of moderation" is very high on that list if not #1. Even within the same thread we had people annoyed that any post was edited period, and others annoyed that there wasn't enough moderation.

Most people don't like a stagnant MUD, they want change, until a change affects them in a way they don't like. Most people don't want a completely unmoderated forum, they want moderators to do their job, until it's them being moderated then the moderators must just be clueless and/or biased.

As for me personally, I'm kind of new to this web forum thing so I'm just going to roll with it for a while .... but the previously mentioned idea of a moderator only forum to hash some of this out is a good one imho.

Most people posting here are MUD admins or have been at some point. We are all too familiar with those controversial areas of "policy" where you can pretty much count on half your users being ticked off no matter which way you go, the only question being which half.

True. So what you do then is look at the merits of the thing being discussed.

Assume half will be ticked with heavy moderation (for example, ALL personal attacks nixed), and assume half will be ticked if you do NOT moderate more heavily.

At least if you go with moderation, on top of the half you didn't tick off, you have a forum where civility and common courtesy reign. All you gain from NOT moderating personal attacks is a trolling flamefest.

(*): As an aside, I'd advocate this as the default term for new visitors to the site, and renaming the appropriate forum. Kudos to Parnassus and Brody for mentioning it. "Newbie" isn't necessarily derogatory, but it can have that connotation, and I can see how it would be alienating. We're guilty of this on CF as well, and upon reflection I'll see what I can do to change this.

Much as I love getting Kudos, I have to admit: It was Molly who felt that "Newbie" was being used as a derogative term. I've never considered it so, since I often try different games and so am an eternal newbie myself. My point was simply that the phrase the OP used did not seem like the one that would automatically pop to the mind of a non-mudder. Even though, as the_logos mentioned later, newbie is not used exclusively by mudders, the phrase seemed a bit too....well, appropriate, to be used by someone at the level of knowledge he claimed to be. Even though he may have pulled the term from the forum name, the rest of my post still stands. I still don't understand how he ended up here, posting that particular note.

As to the term "newbie", I think I've more often heard it used as an explanation of someone than an insult. In my experience, the conversation goes more often like this:

That person is such an idiot!
No, he's just a newbie.

Since I have no argument with the term, I redirect your kudos to Molly.

Well if they were moderated it's not obvious to me that it happened. The last post I recall seeing was from Parnassus and it's the one right above yours right now. Moderation is not evil. If it was done I'd imagine the moderator had a good reason - and they don't need to tell us what it was.

Yeah, it was a fairly painless cut. A bit of a snarky poke to try to get a reaction that had nothing to do with the topic at hand, followed by a post that noted the lack of usefulness in the snarky poke post. I'm cool with the moderation.